New drug to slow degeneration in Parkinson’s disease

Jerusalem, Aug 27 (Xinhua) A drug developed by an Israeli firm has been seen to slow the progression of the Parkinson’s disease, Ha’aretz daily reported Wednesday.A Phase III trial showed that patients treated with Azilect, a medicine developed by Teva Pharmaceuticals, showed improvements as compared to those who started taking the drug at a later stage, the report said.

During the study involving 1,176 patients in the very early stage of the disease, the participants who were given an Azilect tablet once a day for 72 weeks experienced slowing in the progress of the disease as compared to those who received a placebo for the first 36 weeks before being treated with Azilect, according to the report.

The drug has already been approved to treat symptoms of the neurodegenerative condition, but the drugmaker now wants regulators to expand the official labelling of its approved uses to include disease modification, added the report.

“Delaying disease progression is the most important unmet need in the management of Parkinson’s disease,” C. Warren Olanow of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, was quoted as saying.